


skin that glows

by lesbianryuko (ashisverymuchonfire)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blue Hawke, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Diplomatic Hawke, Lyrium Brands, M/M, Touch Aversion, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 21:43:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16900353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashisverymuchonfire/pseuds/lesbianryuko
Summary: For a moment that seems to last an eternity, they both just look at each other, everything silent save for the sound of their breaths. Then Hawke leans forward, lightly gripping Fenris’s arms, and kisses him.When Hawke touches him, it’s different. There’s still pain—there’s always pain—but for the first time, pleasure outweighs it. When Hawke kisses his neck, his jawline, his collarbone, his skin tingles and aches with wanting. When Hawke flips him around and pushes him against the wall, Fenris simply pulls him closer.—Fenris can’t remember a life without pain.





	skin that glows

**Author's Note:**

> sup im a day late bc this one also got longer than i thought it would sfjsdfslkfjlfkdsj but this is for fenris appreciation month day 6: lyrium
> 
> the title is from "linger" by heirsound bc i love them and i love the song soooo much
> 
> also i promise not all of my fic summaries are an excerpt and then a vague one-liner fjlsdjdlfksj this just keeps Happening. also i promise these fics wont all have song lyrics at the beginning i am just a dumb gay leave me alone . anyway here it is just take it jsut fucjgin take it

_skin that glows_  
_the mornings i used to know_  
_heavy head on your pillow_  
_and my bones exposed_

 

The first time Hawke touches Fenris, they’re both covered in blood.

It’s only been a few weeks since Fenris first met him, but since then, Hawke has asked for his assistance in numerous missions, some stranger and more dangerous than others. This time they’re searching for a young mage named Feynriel, and though they haven’t found him yet, they did find something else: a group of slavers in Darktown. “I think it’s only fitting,” Hawke said when he called on Fenris earlier in the day, “that I bring you along to confront these guys.”

Needless to say, Fenris was happy to oblige, and now they’re surrounded by dead slavers.

It never gets old, holding their still-beating hearts in his hand, making them feel fear for once in their pathetic little lives. His markings are a curse, inflicted upon him against his will, but sometimes...well, sometimes he’s not exactly ungrateful for them.

Fenris is not invincible, though, even with the lyrium, and the slavers were clearly prepared for the possibility of a fight, judging by their numbers. The battle wasn’t terrible by any means, but it was certainly more difficult than fighting, say, a group of amateur bandits. Near the very end, one of the slavers got the jump on him and shoved a sword into his side (before promptly being frozen by a Cone of Cold spell, courtesy of Hawke). The slaver mage—whose name Fenris doesn’t care to remember—took advantage of his half-second of weakness and shot a blast of fire at him, a blast that sent him to his knees because he wasn’t quick enough to completely avoid it. Fortunately, there were only a few enemies left, and Hawke, Varric, and Aveline quickly dispatched them.

“Fenris!” Hawke says afterward when he notices Fenris kneeling on the ground and gritting his teeth. Fenris has his head lowered, so he can’t see Hawke, but he can hear the sound of his hurried footsteps.

Fenris has a hand over the gaping wound in his side, and the exposed skin that runs from his left cheek to his neck and down his arm is already blistering. Bloodstains coat his armor, and when he glances up at Hawke, he can see that his companion is in a similar state. “Fenris,” Hawke repeats. “Are you alright?”

“I am fine,” Fenris replies, despite the blood leaking out of the wound and slipping between his fingers.

Behind Hawke, Varric snorts and says, “Yeah, if by ‘fine’ you mean ‘rapidly bleeding out.’”

“Anders’s clinic isn’t far from here,” Hawke says. Fenris rolls his eyes but doesn’t argue. He’s not going to refuse healing when he truly needs it; he isn’t _that_ foolish.

“Here,” Hawke continues, leaning down and reaching his hand out. Before Fenris can protest, before he can even register what’s happening, Hawke wraps his fingers lightly around Fenris’s wrist, probably to help pull him to his feet.

The pain shoots through him like lightning, and he gasps a little, immediately tearing his hand away from Hawke. The lyrium under his skin pulses and glows for the briefest of seconds, and Hawke takes a moment to stare at him with bewilderment. “Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t realize you were injured there, too.”

Fenris doesn’t say anything; he just forces himself to stand back up, trying not to wince. He’s not going to admit that neither of his hands are injured. It’s the markings that hurt—they never stopped hurting, but it’s worse when someone touches him. Hawke doesn’t need to know that, though. No one does.

Fenris walks the whole way to Anders’s clinic, and he doesn’t let anyone help him. They’ll only make it worse.

—

The second time it happens is about two weeks later, at the Hanged Man.

It’s the evening of one of their regular Wicked Grace sessions, accompanied by varying levels of drinking (the cheap ale is nowhere near Fenris’s liking, but he drinks some of it anyway). Isabela holds the current record, followed by Varric and then Hawke. As such, all three are at least somewhat inebriated at this point—and yet they all continue to bluff like champions.

“Victory!” Hawke crows when the Angel of Death card appears. Sure enough, he has a winning hand: four serpents. Everyone groans and tosses their coin his way.

Since he’s sitting right next to Hawke, Fenris simply slides his coin over to him. “Well done, Hawke,” he says, laughing a little. “Lucky bastard.”

“Oh, come on, Fenris. That was pure skill,” Hawke replies. He bumps Fenris’s arm playfully, a drunken grin on his face, and Fenris flinches automatically as it sends a quick jolt of pain through him.

Hawke cocks his head and looks at him quizzically. Fenris opens his mouth, ready to make an excuse, but Hawke beats him to it. “Sorry,” he says. “I’ll stop.”

Fenris raises an eyebrow but keeps quiet. Sober or drunk, Hawke is a lot more observant than he looks.

—

The third time happens much later.

It’s been three years, and a lot has changed since then—Hawke went into the Deep Roads and emerged a much wealthier man. His brother became a templar. Tensions have risen between the Qunari and the rest of Kirkwall. If one thing remains the same, though, it’s this: Fenris has stayed by Hawke’s side, and Hawke by his. So when slavers confront them outside of Kirkwall, sent by Hadriana to recapture Fenris, Hawke is the only person he trusts to help him confront his former master’s apprentice.

Somehow, what they find is even worse than he expected: blood sacrifices abound, the only survivor a young slave girl. It seems Hadriana knows Fenris is coming, and she’s taking all the power she can get, by any means necessary. It figures.

She and her men are prepared, but not prepared enough. None of the slavers or the demons she summons stand a chance against Fenris or Hawke, or Isabela, or even Anders. When they weaken her enough, knock her to the ground with her staff out of her reach, it’s over for her.

Then she says something that stops him in his tracks: “You have a sister. She is alive.”

Oh, she knows him well, but not well enough. She knows he’d do anything just to reclaim a remnant of his past, let alone find his family—but she trusts him far too much with her life, stupid enough to think that he’d actually hold up his end of the deal. When he has the information he wants, true or not, he shoves his hand into her chest and crushes her sorry excuse of a heart.

He should be satisfied, killing her, but he’s not. He’s just angry, perhaps more now than ever before. His head swims with anxiety, with uncertainty, and he says as much to Hawke, barely even thinking about his words before they’re past his lips. He can’t bring himself to care that Anders and Isabela are staring at him as if he’s lost his mind, and he can’t even bring himself to care that Hawke’s brow is creased with worry. In fact, that just makes him angrier.

He tries to reign himself in, to remind himself that at least now Hadriana is dead, and she can’t hurt anyone else. “But all that matters is I finally got to crush this bitch’s heart,” he says, letting his hatred spill out of his mouth. He turns around and looks down at the floor, his back to Hawke. “May she rot, and all the other mages with her.”

“And here I thought you were unreasonable,” Anders mutters.

Before Fenris has a chance to respond, Hawke’s voice, calm and patient, stops him. “Maybe we should leave.”

And then he feels it: Hawke’s hand on his shoulder, squeezing softly, their first real physical contact in years. Things have changed since then, so Fenris doesn’t immediately push him away—but it still hurts, and it does nothing to quell his rage...or his fear. “No,” he says firmly, shrugging his shoulder and walking away. “I don’t want you comforting me.”

He’s not sure how much of that is true and how much of it is a lie. He’s not quite sure of anything.

—

The fourth time happens later the same day, and from that point forward, Fenris stops keeping count.

It eats him up: the hatred, the anger, the fear, the guilt. He can’t stop replaying the scene in his head—Hadriana’s last words, the feel of Hawke’s hand on his shoulder, the poison he spit at a man who has done nothing but help him. _What has magic touched that it doesn’t spoil?_

He waits for Hawke at the estate, where Bodahn greets him cheerfully and treats him far kinder than he deserves. When Hawke arrives, Fenris forces himself to look him in the eye when he apologizes, despite the way it teeters on the brink of showing vulnerability.

“I had no idea where you went. I was concerned,” Hawke says. His voice is soft, but instead of bothering Fenris, this time it just fills him with awe. To have someone worry about him, to have someone care...it’s an unfamiliar sensation.

“I...needed to be alone,” Fenris says dismissively, but that doesn’t feel like enough of a justification, so he tries to make Hawke understand. He talks about the way Hadriana used to treat him, hoping it’ll explain everything he was feeling when he found her in those damned caves.

Partway through an explanation—about hate, about running—it occurs to Fenris that he’s kind of spilling his guts. Instinctively, he forces himself to stop talking, to curl back into his shell, to run away before he goes too far. There’s a large part of him that longs for something more, but he tries his best to choke it down, just like he’s been doing for years now. Turning his back to Hawke and starting to make his way to the door, he sighs and says, “But I didn’t come here to burden you further.”

Hawke’s voice floats over to him, quiet and laced with something Fenris can’t quite identify. “You don’t need to leave, Fenris.”

When Hawke’s hand wraps around the bare skin of his upper arm, the lyrium inside him screams at the sensation. His markings burn blue, and without thinking, he whips around, grabbing Hawke and shoving him up against the nearest wall. Hawke stares at him in shock, and it’s only then that Fenris realizes what he’s doing. Slowly, he uncurls his lip, and the lyrium in his veins seems to calm down, the blue fading from his skin.

For a moment that seems to last an eternity, they both just look at each other, everything silent save for the sound of their breaths. Then Hawke leans forward, lightly gripping Fenris’s arms, and kisses him.

When Hawke touches him, it’s different. There’s still pain—there’s always pain—but for the first time, pleasure outweighs it. When Hawke kisses his neck, his jawline, his collarbone, his skin tingles and aches with wanting. When Hawke flips him around and pushes him against the wall, Fenris simply pulls him closer.

And when they reach Hawke’s bed and the clothes fall off, Fenris lets Hawke’s lips trail down his body, fingers tracing his markings. “Are you alright?” Hawke whispers between kisses, softly running a hand through Fenris’s hair. “Does it hurt?”

“I am fine,” Fenris replies, and for just a moment—one tiny, blissful moment—it’s the truth.

—

It’s three years before they touch again.

When Fenris leaves, it feels like self-imposed exile. He should’ve known that letting someone get too close—both physically and emotionally—would only end in pain for both of them. They don’t talk about it at all, but though Fenris tries to act like it didn’t even happen, he can’t erase the memory of Hawke’s hands, of his lips.

Things change again. Hawke defeats the Arishok, becomes the Champion. Knight-Commander Meredith Stannard takes control of Kirkwall in the wake of the viscount’s death. Fenris follows up on Hadriana’s information and finds, to his surprise, that it’s all true: he really does have a sister named Varania.

It’s a risk, sending her enough coin for her to meet him. He knows this, and it eats at him even after Hawke agrees to come with him. He hasn’t seen Danarius for nine years now. There’s no way his former master would give up so easily.

And yet, he dares to hope. He has a sister—he has _family_ —so maybe not all is lost after all.

When they meet at the Hanged Man, things are good for only a moment. To be able to remember her, to recall instances of his childhood for the first time since the lyrium was stuck under his skin, to know his real name—for just a moment, he has the audacity to dream.

It shouldn’t shock him as much as it does to hear his master’s voice again. It’s what he’s been waiting for. It was always inevitable—but reminding himself of this does nothing to stop the fear that pierces him down to his bones.

With Hawke by his side, he fights, and he wins, and he’s finally able to grab the man who ruined him and crush his vile heart—to look him in the eye and tell him, words like venom, “You are no longer my master.”

It’s Hawke who stops him from killing Varania, and when Fenris starts to spiral, it’s Hawke who steps forward, who looks him in the eye and says, “I’m here, Fenris.”

They’re so close, and everything hurts, but Fenris almost reaches out and touches him—almost. For a long moment, he doesn’t say anything; he just stares at Hawke, the man he loved and lost—or thought he lost—and then he turns away, his head swimming. There may be no past for him to reclaim...but perhaps there is a future.

The next day, when Hawke comes to talk to him, Fenris confesses his mixed feelings. It feels wrong not to be running and fighting, as if he suddenly lacks purpose, but Hawke points out that perhaps it just means he no longer has anything holding him back. The thought of finally being able to move forward is both terrifying and freeing in its uncertainty.

When Hawke tells him that he hopes they’ll stay together, it finally gives Fenris the courage to stand up and say something about the thing they’ve both been dancing around.

Once again, Fenris spills his guts, and this time he doesn’t back down in fear; he doesn’t care if it makes him vulnerable. He can’t live the rest of his life without letting Hawke know how he feels, without asking for forgiveness. His heart pounds in his chest, and he forces himself to make eye contact.

Hawke watches and listens the way he always does, and finally he says, ever patient, ever genuine, “I understand. I always understood.”

Fenris almost can’t believe what he’s hearing. It seems surreal for the man he left to forgive him so easily, to _love_ him after everything. He takes a few steps forward, leans down so that his face is only inches from Hawke’s, and says, “If there is a future to be had, I will walk into it gladly at your side.”

In response, Hawke stands up, wrapping his arms around Fenris’s waist. When they kiss, it tastes of passion and years of longing, and Fenris tangles his gauntleted fingers in Hawke’s hair. Hawke kisses him harder and deeper, and Fenris just holds him that much tighter, an anchor in a sea of uncertainties. The touch that he once shied away from, he now can’t get enough of—and when Hawke’s hands grip his bare skin, the lyrium doesn’t scream like it used to.


End file.
